Studio Umbrella Inc.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

The company is a digital signage platform that gives a full solution to retail businesses for digital signage management.

What is your role and responsibilities?

I’m the content department manager here.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal for working with studio umbrella?

We worked on several applications and content creation for our platform. While working with studio umbrella, we have been focusing on solutions for dynamic content and the applications that could fit our platform. We are also doing integration with our content management system and other tie-ins.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their work.

They provide dynamic content and creative templates to work with our platforms and with our content management systems. It’s not software development work. They are tasked to give the creative solution and the technology solution.

We have our technology and it’s based on dynamic templates that are developed in Flash and HTML. So, they just provide the solution to our platform on both the creative and coding sides. We gave studio umbrella a brief and the characterization of the template that we needed at the end of the day, and they delivered a solution.

What was your process for selecting studio umbrella with which to work?

Their CEO [and founder Ronen Hirsch] knows our company well. He has worked with some of our products and some of our platforms previously. We wanted someone we could rely on who knows our platform. studio umbrella is willing to dig deep and understand a new solution and new platform.

We have a good relationship with him, and we were happy with the first few products that we did with him, so we invited them to learn and understand the other platform that we utilize.

Can you give a sense of the size of the initiative in dollar terms or a personnel work-hour figure?

It was from $10,000 to $50,000.

When was the work completed?

It’s ongoing work. We’ve been working on this for a year or more. During this period, we did some other work also. We developed an application for football stadiums. studio umbrella designed that and wrote the code behind it. We had updates for the application along the way.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Do you have any statistics or metrics to track improvement from the project?

Our customers are happy. That’s the only metric.

Are you satisfied with their performance?

We are very happy with their work. The system is working perfectly.

Is there anything unique or special about studio umbrella that really makes them stand out compared to other business partners?

They know how to listen and understand. They’re very pro customer. They really support and understand the project and how they can bring a solution in. They are very good guys to work with. I knew when I gave him them the project that I can sleep well at night. I can rely on studio umbrella to deliver on time and have a good product.

What advice would you give to future clients of theirs?

I would say characterize the project as very good. Know exactly what you want. Sit with the studio umbrella team and understand them exactly what you want and listen because they’ll be able to give the right solution.

Looking back on the work so far, is there any area that you think they could improve upon or that you might do differently?

No.

BACKGROUND

Please describe your organization.

Our company is a television distributor and development company. We create format, which is the IP [Internet protocol] for a TV show. We create and distribute both our own shows and other shows that come to us worldwide.

What are your role and responsibilities?

I’m head of marketing and communication. I handle all the marketing, all the PR [public relations] – everything to do with both the shows and the company.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What was your goal in working with studio umbrella?

studio umbrella created and maintains our website. We also work with them on projects where we need programming for certain interactive elements.

SOLUTION

Please describe the scope of their work.

studio umbrella redesigned our website a few years ago. Since we don’t have a regular programmer, we work with them on a project basis. We’ve had two formats where we’ve wanted to have interactive online games – People’s Choice and Babushka. I briefed studio umbrella on the format of the TV shows, and we worked together to create the games.

What was your process for selecting studio umbrella with which to work?

They were already working with us when I joined the company. I chose to continue working with studio umbrella because they’re great at what they do.

Can you give a sense of the size of their work in dollar terms or a personnel work hour figure?

We spent under $10,000 on the games. I don’t know how much the website cost.

When was the project completed?

The work is nearly completed but ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Are you satisfied with the performance of studio umbrella?

They do the job very professionally, quickly, and efficiently so I'm satisfied. They moved to Los Angeles, so they’re in a different time zone now, but I’m still working with them.

Is there anything unique or special about studio umbrella that really makes them stand out compared to other business partners?

They take the initiative to make changes. I missed some of the details on some of the games, but they fixed the problems on their own initiative. studio umbrella is also very good with the design elements, which is very important to us. They’re very easy to work with and always answer all of my questions in detail. They have even made their day start earlier because we’re based in Israel. studio umbrella has sacrificed to work with us.

What advice would you give to future clients of theirs?

Be sure to discuss your project on the phone or Skype, so you are sure everyone is on the same page.

Looking back on the work so far, is there any area that you think they could improve upon or that you might do differently?

I really can’t think of anything.